1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computing and networking. More particularly, the present invention relates to managing network addresses.
2. Description of the Background Art
Internet protocol (IP) addresses may be sectioned off or grouped together into subnets (short for “subnetworks”) for management purposes. Such subnet are described further in Request for Comments (RFC) 950 and other documents from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) (see http://ietf.org on the World Wide Web). Per RFC 950, subnets “are logically visible sub-sections of a single Internet network.” A subnet is typically associated with an identifiable separate part of an organization's network infrastructure.
In the context of the following discussion, the “network manager” and the “network consumer” are both information technology (IT) administrators. The network manager refers to someone who administers the network and its resources (including physical resources, like devices, and virtual resources, like IP addresses). The network consumer is not the end-user of the corporate network, but instead refers to one who is, for example, setting up a group of systems to provide a service on the corporate network.
As determined by the inventors, currently available tools to manage IP address spaces have various problems and disadvantages. First, these tools are focused on the network manager, and the network manager must still interact heavily with the network consumers to ensure that the consumers choose appropriate address space. Considerable time of the network managers and network consumers is currently wasted with tedious tasks such as determining the IP address and network mask of an available subnet that meets the network consumers' requirements. Second, these tools only manage the address space itself; they do not manage other inter-related characteristics. For example, performance and security characteristics are not managed.
Third, these tools are separate and apart from an automated provisioning system. Such automated provisioning systems are utilized to create infrastructure on behalf of the IT personnel. Fourth, subnet usage is typically accounted for manually in a separate step. Such manual accounting is needed to take into account the fluctuation over time of subnet utilization, but the manual accounting is error prone.
The above-described problems and disadvantages may be overcome by utilizing embodiments of the present invention.